Black Mountain

Black Mountain's Jeremy Schmidt tips us off to Canada's newest
record shop, recalls a showstopping stage fight at a Sunn O))) concert,
and tells us the best place to take in a gig when visiting Holland. [Interview: Tyler Grisham]

Welcome to the latest edition of Pitchfork's Guest List. Each week, we
ask one of our favorite artists to fill us in on what they've been up
to lately: which tracks they can't stop spinning, what books they can't
put down, and what new bands they've caught on tour. This week it's Black Mountain's Jeremy Schmidt, who tips us off to Canada's newest record shop, recalls a showstopping stage fight at a Sunn O))) concert, and tells us the best place to take in a gig when visiting Holland.
>> Favorite New Songs of the Past Year
Have you heard El Perro del Mar? I heard some of that stuff recently, that's pretty good. It really gets under your skin. I really like that song "Party", and her LP I guess. I've had that stuck in my head lately, "Party", and another one called "Dog". I didn't know anything about her really, and I heard them just recently-- I heard that LP and I was like, "man, I've heard all these songs before," and I think I heard them when we were on tour or something, maybe when we were in Sweden or in the van or something, but it's good; I like that stuff.

I liked a couple songs off that Sunn O))) and Boris album, Altar, there's one called "Akuma No Kuma", I liked that, and another one called "The Sinking Belle (Blue Sheep)"-- those are pretty good.

Another song I kind of dig is one that someone put on a mix CD for me, by Brightblack Morning Light, called "Everybody Daylight".

And one band I really like called Circle put out a new album that I picked up while I was out on tour. They're from Finland; they're a pretty interesting band. They're a bit like Judas Priest meets Neu! or something. They're kind of like, somewhat theatrical metal, but then they have this real trance kind of element. They're definitely a pretty interesting band. You never know which way they're going to go in any given song.

Oh, and I like that song called "Forest on Fire" by Tiny Vipers. It's a good song. I dig that one.

>> Favorite Older Songs at the Moment

Well, I'm listening to older stuff constantly. Lately I've been really into Roy Harper. I really like that song, "The Lord's Prayer"-- it's like a side-long track on this album called Life Mask.

"In the Court of the Crimson King" by King Crimson. I listen to that a lot.

A couple others: Ghost do a cover of "Dominoes", the Syd Barrett song, and they sort of go into this amazing organ thing at the end, which is pretty good.

I'm just trying to think of songs I've had stuck in my head lately.. Oh, that song "Trouble" by Lindsey Buckingham [
laughs
], and what else? Kate Bush, "Running Up That Hill", I always get that stuck in my head, probably because one of my bandmates has it as his ringtone.

"Each One Teach One" by Oneida is a great one.

"Ashes to Ashes" by David Bowie is another good one.

>> Favorite New Band

I can't think of a favorite new band! Like, I can think of a band that I'm really into right now that's, like, an older band. But something that's brand new is, like...

I heard that band Citay, I like that. I guess that's a new band, right? That guy Tim Green from the Fucking Champs. I've only heard the album a couple of times but I definitely liked it. And I like that El Perro del Mar, I guess that's new. That stuff's pretty good. Those are kind of different ends of the spectrum I guess.

Pitchfork:
I was just listening to that record yesterday. It's one of my favorites.

That song-- I think I've loved that song always. I can't think of a time where I didn't want to hear it. That would be one, definitely. I'm a big Harry Nilsson fan, but I couldn't pare it down to, like, one song.

Pitchfork:
Not even "One"?

[
laughs
] Maybe that song, there you go! That song is amazing. That's a good one. And "Africa" by Toto is another runner-up.

Pitchfork:
Totally.

Toto-lly.

>> Best Recent Concert

Probably the Sunn O))) show that I saw at ATP. That was pretty monstrous. Pretty amazing. Just sheer force of nature [laughs]. At the end of it, there seemed to be some kind of fight between two of the guys on stage-- one guy pushed the other guy right into the backline of amps and knocked down a whole stack of amps. And I was like, "Huh, is that theatre... or is that real aggression?" And from what I hear it was, like, yeah... dudes not getting along. But it was amazing. It was a good show.

And I also saw Circle play-- I guess this was over a year ago now-- but we were on tour again and we were in Dublin, and just kind of in the hotel lobby flipping through the weeklies, and we noticed that Circle were playing this show at this little pub that had this upstairs art space or something, and it was just totally captivating. Really good.

>> Last Great Film I Saw

Lately...I saw that movie
Rescue Dawn
on the airplane. That was pretty good. Not as good as
Grizzly Man
, though, which I saw recently. That's amazing. That's probably one of the better films I've seen lately. I also saw that movie
Walkabout
-- it's Nicholas Roeg. It's a pretty old film, but I just saw it a couple months ago, and it's really good.

>> Last Great Book I Read

My favorite book is probably
Watership Down
, that's an outstanding one. But I've been reading a biography on Badfinger on the road lately. That's a band that definitely had a lot of bad, bad luck. Nothing very good ever happened to that band. It's called
Without You: The Tragic Story of Badfinger
by Dan Matovina. This guy seems to be, like, an über-fan. He seems pretty thorough on the fact-noting tip. It's defintiely got quite a tone, this book. Interesting.

The one I have I think is, like, a later one, like late '70s, maybe even 1980. It was one of the ones that was badged the "Novatron", when they lost rights to the name, so they had to put this sticker over the name, says "Novatron". So it's one of the later ones, one of the more common ones, I guess, if you can call any of them common.

>> Favorite Record Shop

I'm not sure about that. I like the
Amoeba
shop in San Francisco, it's pretty great. I haven't been there for a while, though.

A friend of mine just opened a record store in Vancouver called
Dandelion
, and it's pretty great. They've got a lot more obscure, I guess collectible kind of stuff, 60s avant garde stuff and a lot of krautrock that I can't afford to buy [laughs]; I haven't even bought anything there yet. It's new-- I think he's only had the store open, sort of a basement shop, for a couple months.

There's a good record shop in Victoria, too, called The Turntable. Always nice to find a couple good things there.

>> Best Purchase of the Past Year

I bought an Oberheim Two Voice on eBay, that's a pretty nice piece of kit.

I also got this thing called a Memotron, which is like a virtual Mellotron, if you will, that I can actually take on tour [laughs], since the Mellotron stays put. That's probably one of the more sensible things I bought, so that I can do Mellotron things live. So, yeah, gear shit I guess would be the only stuff that I've bought in the last little while. Besides, maybe, a good pair of Clark's.

>> Best Thing I Did This Year

Nothing I can think of that I can divulge [laughs]. Been touring most of the time, and we had some pretty good moments on the tours.

>> Favorite Music Venue
That's another tough one; I always forget the names of places we've played. But there's a good one in Holland, in Groningen, called
Vera
. It's pretty good. I don't know if it's the greatest venue in terms of the greatest sounding or the greatest room, but it's just a nice place-- the hospitality is great. They have a common room upstairs where they feed you, and they also have their own in-house printing, they actually print their own posters there, like, a silkscreen shop. And they have this little bar downstairs that's separate from the venue, so it's just really good amenities-wise. A lot of bands have played there. They have all these 8x12s all over the place, and posters-- they actually had a U2 poster there from, like, 1982, when they played there I guess, that's still on the wall. It's kind of cool for that-- just a history of the bands that have passed through there over the years.

Another place that I like is
The Independent
in San Francisco. The sound is great in there, it sounds great from the stage, and it's a well run place.

>> Favorite TV Show at the Moment

Lately I've been watching "Miami Vice". I'm up to Season Four. I don't actually have cable, so I don't get to see much in the way of new stuff. I kind of just get to see stuff when it comes out on DVD. I like "The Office" a lot, like, the British one, the original "Office" I think is pure genius. But lately I've just been watching Season Four of "Miami Vice"-- not the best season, but still good.

>> Favorite Video Game at the Moment

Favorite video game? I guess Pong [laughs]. I like that game. It's a good one. The original video game.

>> Favorite Radio Show

Again, I don't really listen to the radio, so I don't know. I'll give props to BBC 6Music in England, because apparently one of the guys there likes my solo CD and has been playing it a lot there. I read that somewhere. BBC 6.. I didn't even know they went up that high. I thought it only went up to BBC 3 and then Channel 4 [laughs]. I guess things have changed a little bit, even in the UK.

>> My Ringtone

I don't even have a cellphone. But like I said, Josh has "Running Up That Hill" on his [laughs], that's why I have it stuck in my head lately.